reflections
Even though all this journey started in the context of the master, the collaborations we started, the enthusiasm of the participants of the first interventions, or of the followers of our social media account, make us want to pursue developing the concept of this slow & low tech movement.
To be able to continue, we will need a real structure and will create a non profit organization for Slow Lab. This will also enable the application for subventions or grants supporting this kind of projects.
what will continue?
Social events such as the Solar Brunches we started to organize. They are organized in collaboration with other associations aligned with our vision. In the case of the Solar Brunches, they are organized in ConnectHort and in collaboration with the author of Low Tech Magazine. They are occasions to show the use and purpose of low tech devices in an entertaining context.
Gastronomic events are another possibility as some of the devices we are working on are related to food preservation or preparation. In the context of MDEFest, we are hosting with other classmates an exhibition focused on ancient methods, rituals, crafts related to conservation (described in Chapter 7). In the future, we could plan more of these collaborations with food businesses that share the same vision.
Workshops can be future possibilities as some people participating in the previous event manifested their interest in wanting to learn how to make some of the objects themselves. If they are connected to a specific topic, the workshops will also be organized in collaboration with other organizations. We are working on bike generators also to open the topic of our autonomy in terms of electricity and thought the format of workshops for people to build their own power station would make sense. We have been discussing this possibility with Bicihub and Biciclot and they were open to include some workshops in their programmation of events or even co-organize one.
Cultural events/design festivals with topics close to our interventions can be a way to spread our vision to other designers students or professionals and contribute to growing a community of like-minded creatives. One example is the Solar Biennale that will take place in Rotterdam next September.
Concerning the objects or devices, we can differentiate two cases:
Tutorials and open source files for the devices we make: such as solar ovens, solar dehydrators, bike generators. In that case, the files will be shared under a Creative Commons Licence. We would probably choose the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) one, which allow others to
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format,
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
The second case for our devices is that some of them can be bought directly made by us on demand, to avoid having to store a big quantity of items. This is a part of the economic model that we want to develop. For this, the possible ways to sell them are:
- directly through our website / social media where we will communicate about the devices available to buy,
- during the events,
- by collaborating with professionals such as interior designers that could propose these slow items to their clients when working on a new house or on a renovation.